Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire hits stores on Tuesday, and the floodgates opened at midnight on Monday for reviewers to unleash their thoughts on the Android-based tablet -- and, of course, how it will or will not threaten Apple’s current domination of the tablet market with the iPad 2. Here’s a look at what the reviewers have to say.
AppleInsider has collected highlights from the first batch of Kindle Fire reviews, which include the usual suspects such as David Pogue from The New York Times as well as Wired and ZDNet. Right at the witching hour on Sunday night (technically Monday morning), the first reviews also appeared from Engadget, The Verge and Gizmodo as well, although nothing from AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg as yet.
The New York Times’ Pogue says the Kindle Fire lacks the “polish or speed” of the iPad, and claims it’s “dangerous” to make comparisons to Apple’s tablet against the $199 Amazon offering. “Animations are sluggish and jerky -- even the page turns that you’d think would be the pride of the Kindle team,” Pogue writes. “Taps sometimes don’t register. There are no progress or ‘wait’ indicators, so you frequently don’t know if the machine has even registered your touch commands.”
On the plus side, Pogue praises the Kindle Fire, claiming it “deserves to be a disruptive, gigantic force -- it’s a cross between a Kindle and an iPad, more compact internet and video viewer at a great price.” Likewise, Larry Dignan at ZDNet gives props to Amazon for a good job at hiding the “warts” of Google’s Android operating system, but believes the Kindle Fire is essentially an “impulse purchase device” aimed at entrenching Amazon customers more firmly into the e-tailer’s ecosystem.
“iPad killer? No, the Kindle Fire is not,” states Wired’s Jon Phillips. “And it doesn’t even match the iPad in web browsing, the one area in which its hardware should have sufficient performance to compete.” Phillips calls out the media for exacerbating the hype around the Kindle Fire, while calling the device a “pretty good bargain” for those on the fence about buying a tablet in the first place.
Judging from the reviews, it would seem Apple’s “top of the tablet hill” status is safe from yet another potential contender -- but the real Amazon threat is still the low cost of entry and the massive library of content, which few other companies can tout. Time will tell if Apple has anything to worry about…
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